If you want to add a sense of stability and permanence in your garden, why not consider planting a tree (or two)? Trees have many uses – they create shade, wind breaks, privacy and focal points in your overall garden design and they are also a haven for birds. You’ll find all kinds of different sizes, colours, fruits, leaf shapes, barks and flowers.
Before planting a tree, however, it’s important to remember that a large-growing variety may disrupt the foundations if it’s planted within 30m of a house. Decide whether you want a deciduous tree or an evergreen. Deciduous trees will not provide so much screening in winter when they have no leaves. Try to avoid planting a tree where it will shade windows or neighbours’ gardens.
We have recommended some popular trees opposite for different qualities, with the Latin name first, followed by the common name, so you can locate them easily in your garden centre or nursery.
Planting & Preperation Time: 30 MINS PER TREE
• Trees are usually sold in pots and can be planted all year round unless the ground is frozen. Choose a plant with a healthy, straight, long top shoot and ensure it has been growing in the container for a while and has not been recently transplanted. If picked up by the stem, the pot should not fall away.
• First stand the tree in its pot in a bowl of water until compost is wet.
• Dig a planting hole about twice the size of the pot and fork over the bottom. Check it’s big enough.
• Tap out the tree and tease out the roots. On bare-root specimens, ensure the roots are well spread out. Keep the top of the roots just below soil level.
• Hammer a stake firmly into the ground adjacent to the rootball at a 45° angle. The stake will stabilise the tree and keep it steady until the roots are established.
• Fill in the surrounding hole and firm down the soil with your foot.
• Sprinkle a handful of general fertiliser around the plant.
• Fasten adjustable rubber or plastic ties round the stake and stem.
• Water well and keep watering for the next few weeks.
Autumn Colour
• Acer rubrum – (maple) brilliant red colours in autumn. 20m
• Amelanchier lamarckii (snowy mespilus) – white spring flowers, orange-red autumn colour. 4m
• Cercidiphyllum japonicum (katsura tree)– yellow and pink autumn leaves. 15m
• Crataegus x persimilis (hawthorn) – orange autumn leaves and persistent red fruit. 8m
• Liquidambar (sweet gum) (pictured) – glossy green leaves turn fiery red in autumn. 15m
• Nyssa sylvatica (tupelo) (front cover) – glossy foliage turning red-orange in autumn. 10m
• Pyrus calleryana (ornamental pear) – good autumn colour and spring blossom. 8m
• Sorbus (rowan & whitebeam) – red or orange berries and good autumn colour. 8m
Flowers
• Arbutus unedo (Killarney strawberry tree) – small evergreen with brown, shedding bark, and white flowers and strawberrylike fruits produced together in the autumn. 5m
• Crataegus laevigata ‘Pauls Scarlet’ (hawthorn) – double scarlet flowers in May. 6m
• Magnolia (pictured) – a medium to large tree with large, white, cream, pink or yellow flowers, usually appearing before the leaves. 15–20m
• Malus (flowering crab apples) – small to medium trees with white or pink flowers and yellow, red or purple fruit. 5–8m
• Malus (flowering crab apples) – small to medium trees with white or pink flowers and yellow, red or purple fruit. 5–8m
• Stewartia – white camellia-like flowers in summer and orangered autumn colour. Up to 10m
Shape & Form
• Amelanchier canadensis – white flowers in April–May, upright habit, superb autumn colour. 4m
• Betula pendula ‘Youngii’ (Young’s weeping birch) – small weeping tree with silver bark. 5m
• Cotoneaster ‘Hybridus Pendulus’ – weeping tree with red berries. Sept–spring. Evergreen. 2m
• Picea glauca (white spruce) (pictured) – upright, conical conifer with blue-green foliage. 2m
• Prunus ‘Kiku-shidare-zakura’ (Cheals weeping cherry) – masses of sugar pink double flowers in spring. 3m
• Quercus robur ‘Fastigiata Koster’ (cypress oak) – a narrow, columnar tree that retains its shape well. 20m+
• Salix caprea ‘Pendula’ (Kilmarnock willow) – yellow spring catkins, weeping. 1.2m
Bark
• Acer davidii ‘George Forrest’ (snakebark maple) (pictured) – green/white striped bark, dark red new shoots and stalks. 3m
• Acer griseum (paper bark maple) – peeling brown bark, yellow autumn colour. 5m
• Betula utilis var. jacquemontii – best white bark of all birches, golden autumn colours. 10m
• Corylus colurna (Turkish hazel) – imposing tree, with roughly textured, corky bark. Long, yellow catkins in spring and fringed nuts in autumn. 10m
• Eucalyptus gunnii (cider gum) – hardy, large tree with smooth grey-pink to red-brown bark. The evergreen leaves are grey-green. 20m
• Prunus serrula (Tibetan cherry) – a fast growing, small rounded tree with shiny, mahogany bark. 8m
• Water new trees as much as possible during the spring and summer of their first year.
• Sprinkle a handful of bonemeal or a general fertiliser around the tree in early spring and again a month later.
• Check that ties are not too tight as the tree grows or it could be strangled! Remove the stake after the second or third year.
• Your tree may grow fast initially and then slow down. Or it may grow slowly to start, then sprint away. Be patient!
• Most ornamental trees do not normally need cutting back but if a tree develops two upright shoots, cut one out to ensure that it grows straight upwards and doesn’t develop weaknesses.
• Any low branches that might create too much shade can be removed in very early spring to minimise scarring of the stem.
• Once mature, trees will look after themselves but if they need major pruning or become dangerous, call a tree surgeon.
• Many trees are not bothered unduly by pest or diseases, but refer to the tree label or ask at your garden centre or nursery if there is a problem.
• Some trees such as Prunus and lilac produce suckers (growths coming from the root and stem). Simply trace the sucker to its origin and pull or cut it off at the junction with the root.
• Deciduous trees need no attention in winter. Shake excess snow off evergreens to stop the weight breaking the branches.
• In conifers, the danger time for establishment is April–June. Regularly check in dry weather, watering both soil and foliage. Give a high-nitrogen feed each April to increase the growth rate and improve foliage colour.
